


hurricanes

by jeffwing



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Britta POV, F/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26252212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffwing/pseuds/jeffwing
Summary: Britta drops out of high school to impress Radiohead, but also to disappoint her parents. She dyes her hair, goes to political rallies, throws neon paint on fur coats, gets arrested, joins the Peace Corps, is tear-gassed. And then she joins an anarchist group.Why?Because Britta prefers monsoons to droughts.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Britta Perry
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	hurricanes

**Author's Note:**

> So... I read readymcreaderson's fic "You're The Worst" and it inspired me to write a Britta fic that accidentally turned into a sort of Britta/Troy fic. Thanks to her for reading it and giving me encouragement to publish.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Britta loves being high.

Everyone knows this, Shirley included, as much as she’s tried to hide it from her. But it’s not the weed, it’s the euphoria she's after, and if she plays her cards right, she doesn't always need drugs to feel it. 

Britta chases after the things that can drown her, because she never wants her life to be shallow and dry. Arid. Like her parents. 

They’re the white-picket-fence perfect couple. With a beautiful pale-skinned, blonde-haired daughter. 

Britta’s friends come over and say that her parents are “mad nice” and the “sweetest people ever,” but no one really understands them. 

You see, in Britta’s family, it’s all about facades. It’s okay if they’re falling apart on the inside, as long as on the outside they look like a happy family. As long as Britta dresses nice, does her hair in the morning, and puts on a big smile (without showing teeth, because her mom says she looks prettier that way), it doesn’t matter how suffocated she feels on the inside. 

It's all very subtle. 

Britta drops out of high school to impress Radiohead, but also to disappoint her parents. She dyes her hair, goes to rallies, throws neon paint on fur coats, gets arrested, joins the Peace Corps, gets tear-gassed. Goes to Ghana to see the coast and a bit of the rainforest. (She’s not saying she went to _Africa_ anymore, because she’ll just be adding to the stupid American narrative that Africa’s just one big country and not a continent). And then she joins an anarchist group. 

Why?

Because Britta prefers monsoons to droughts. 

* * *

During her anarchist days, she meets Blade. Blade is, as Jeff would say, a hurricane. 

When Blade kisses her for the first time, she tastes beer and rebellion and a midnight chase. His fingertips slide underneath her shirt. 

It’s an endless, breathless rush. 

Britta lets Blade have her heart, because the first time they have sex he calls her beautiful. Which is stupid and cliche, but she's naive to love and believes it’s true.

No one has ever said anything like that to her, whispered into her skin with kind eyes, like she’s someone worth risking everything for.

Despite his eyes, Blade isn’t really kind. 

He strings her along. He bails on their dates with fake excuses. He talks to other women. He makes her crazy. 

Britta hates women who stay with men like this, men that don’t deserve them, but she hates even herself more, so she stays latched on for a year.

Her escape is community college. 

* * *

Greendale is exactly what she needs. It’s not pretentious or filled with people who care too much about the wrong things. It’s a gold mine for her, because it’s full of screw-ups, like herself, who are trying to start over. She doesn’t have to pretend to be anybody and she's not stuck on anybody either. 

Her parents say they’re proud of her for going back to school. She knows that’s only half the story. 

“Community college is a good start,” they say. “You can always transfer to a better school next year.”

She lets their messages go straight to her voicemail. 

* * *

Britta has friends now, but she’s still the worst. 

She loves them, though, because they’re all the worst, and they know it, but they stick together anyway. 

Jeff desperately tries to get into her pants, which kind of grosses her out at first. (She doesn’t believe narcissistic, blase pretty-boys anymore. They’re all liars.) But then she realizes it’s kind of flattering. She’s never been chased before. She’s done the chasing and the falling and the getting back up again, but she’s never been chased the way Jeff Winger chases her.

Then Slater comes along and Britta misses Jeff’s pursuits. She misses being wanted. The possibility of drowning in someone. 

So she falls. Again. 

She loves Jeff when she makes that drunk phone call. Or she thinks she does. Even if he called her a buzzkill and told her she had a natural talent for severity. Whatever, he still said she was important. 

Which is what matters, right?

* * *

She’s wrong. 

Britta sleeps with Jeff before she tells him she loves him. Which is ~~maybe~~ probably a mistake. 

Jeff runs.

* * *

Britta admits to herself she has a lot of issues, but it’s too much work to try and figure them all out.

So she sleeps with Jeff again.

They’re such good friends that he knows everything inside of her anyway, so it’s not a big deal if he knows what it feels like too. 

Jeff never looks her in the eyes or whispers anything to her skin, so it feels safe. 

* * *

Somewhere along the way, Troy lies about his uncle touching him. It sounds like echoing thunder in the storm she’s been waiting for, so she kisses him. 

When Troy admits the truth, Britta feels betrayed. 

But she forgives him, because he’s one of the only boys to have lied to her and admitted he was wrong afterwards.

And he’s sweet too, but Britta doesn’t want to think about that.

Sweet boys aren't hurricanes. 

* * *

After she nearly sleeps with a war criminal, Britta admits to herself she has a lot of issues, and she’s going to figure them all out. 

She majors in psychology.

No one in the study group takes her seriously. They remind her of her parents, all knowing eye-contact and subtle disapproval. 

So she turns the insecurity away from herself. Makes other people her projects. Questions motives. Tries to find psychopaths in her friends. 

She also falls in love with the equivalent of a walking billboard. Subway. Even after all this time, she's still chasing after the unattainable.

* * *

When Blade comes to town, everything goes to hell. She needs to be locked away to remind herself that she’s not that person anymore. That she’s not the same self-loathing-destructive girl she was a few years ago.

But she's so, so weak.

Annie helps. Or tries to at least. So do Abed and Troy, in their own way. 

But nothing works. Nothing until Jeff comes storming in and tells her the truth about Blade, how he has brain damage and doesn't feel shame and how she needs to stop going to other people with her hatred of herself and it's just…

A revelation.

She needs to fix herself. It's her own job to be a better person, not anyone else’s. 

It doesn't matter if she’s in a drought or a rainstorm, she just needs to be prepared. Self-love as her umbrella, perseverance as her canteen. She's ready.

So Britta decides the next person she’ll go to, she'll go to them prepared. She’ll go to them with love.

* * *

Annie tells her that healthy relationships should be a conscious effort on both parties to agree to a commitment. That they should never just slide into casual sex without a conversation first.

Britta’s relationships have never gone this way, she's always in someone’s backseat or on a couch somewhere making out, before she can have that conversation. It's the passion that gets her, who needs to talk when you can kiss, right? 

With Troy it’s different.

Sure, Annie peer pressured them into going on a date. And maybe it's a little awkward at first, but Troy smiles at her, all shy and sweet and she remembers what he wrote in the text message to her, that was supposed to be from Blade, and it makes her heart all warm. 

_I love it when you laugh so hard you smile with your teeth showing, it might be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen._

And

_I have regrets, I might be in love with you_

It has a different meaning now. Britta told Blade about her teeth all those years ago, how insecure she was about them, and the callback to the confession made her sick to her stomach, reminded her of what a loser he was, trying to win her back by using her insecurities. 

But she never told Troy about the teeth thing. So does that mean…he actually likes them?

Conversation flows smooth and easy and she's laughing so hard that she nearly snorts up her water, but Troy doesn't make fun of her, he just laughs along and eventually puts his hand over hers across the table.

She kisses him when they get to the parking lot, and it's not a backseat or a couch, but despite Annie's warning, they don't really talk about their commitment and slide into the rest.

* * *

Britta thinks she might love Troy.

She's used to loving guys before she likes them, but not this time around.

She feels like springtime with him. His love is warm like the sun, softening her skin.

He works on her, slowly, until she opens up to him like a blooming flower unfurling at the edges, spreading her petals to be adored.

* * *

Before long, though, Britta becomes second place to Abed.

She's not surprised, she's never been anyone's first choice, as much as she wants it to be different. 

She feels like she's chasing again, running madly through the storm towards a person who’s unattainable.

Only this time, she has her umbrella.

She kindly reminds herself that she's not running to anyone with her loathing anymore.

She lets Troy slip away slowly. If he's not ready, she isn't going to force it.

She talks to herself in the mirror, says stupid affirmations she read in one of her psych textbooks. 

_I am great._

_I am going to have a good day._

_I am worthy of being loved._

And she is.

Even when Troy breaks up with her.

* * *

Britta hurts sometimes, in those first few weeks, because she knows now, what it's like to love and be loved, in a way that's not a hurricane or a monsoon or a rainstorm.

She knows what it's like to feel the sun. And now that she has, she's not sure if she can go back.

* * *

Troy hugs her goodbye and says, 

“ _You’re the best and I love you.”_

Britta writes it down, adds it to her affirmations.

* * *

Sometimes, when the sun is shining and the weather is nice, Britta thinks about Troy. She wonders what he's up to or where he's going or if he'll ever come back to Greendale.

She wonders if he ever thinks about her. 

* * *

Britta repairs her relationship with her parents, moves in with Annie and Abed. 

She gets Troy’s old room.

She repaints it to look completely different. She doesn't want the memories.

* * *

Britta dates Rick because he promises her a future and a normal relationship. 

He's lying to her, like all the other guys she dated, but this time, it's not intentional because he's lying to himself too.

He’s a junkie, chasing the highs just like she ~~is~~ was, and Britta doesn't need that kind of trigger in the rest of her life.

* * *

Britta gets a postcard from Troy in Ghana. He tells her he’s at Boti Falls.

They are two waterfalls, one male, one female.

It's said that during monsoon season, the two meet and join together, forming the most extraordinary rainbow when the sun shines.

Troy writes,

_I don't know why, but the falls reminded me of you. The female one at least. Is that sexist? I don't know._

_I'm sorry that wasn't us. Making rainbows. You deserve that and so much more._

_P.S. You said you went to Ghana, have you been here before?_

* * *

Four months after everyone leaves her and Jeff behind, Troy comes back.

Britta and Jeff plan a party. 

When Troy arrives, he’s soaked in rain. Abed forgot an umbrella and went to the wrong terminal and Troy spent fifteen minutes walking up and down the airport trying to find his best friend.

She hugs Troy anyway. Despite the coldness soaking through her clothes, she still feels sunshine.

The party is absolute chaos. There's alcohol and tears and death-grip hugs and laughter.

Troy sits on one end of the table and Britta sits at the other side, surrounded by the rest of the study group.

“Tell us about your travels, Troy!”

“What was your favorite place to visit?”

“Did you experience the African water shortage?” 

Britta frowns. The words come out before she can stop them. “You mean the _South_ _African_ water shortage. Making sweeping generalizations about an issue covering an entire _continent_ adds to the larger, convenient Western narrative that Africa is a barren continent plagued with problems.”

Everyone groans. Everyone, except Troy.

“Here we go again,” Jeff says. 

Troy, holds up a hand. “No guys, she's right. The countries in Africa are, like, way diverse. South Africa had the water shortage, but when I went to Ghana there was so much...”

His voice fades out in the background. Britta’s heart is pounding in her ears with relief. Affection. 

_She's right._

She's facing the opposite direction, so nobody but Troy sees it when she smiles.

It's all teeth.


End file.
